He stood Wednesday about one week from his second draft as Chargers general manager. If asked, he could recite all 60-plus players on the current roster. Just as easily, he can recall its general makeup at this point last year.

"I think we're better now than we were last year," Telesco said. "We're certainly not one player away, either."

The Chargers have work to do, eyeing a second impactful draft under Telesco. Just don't make it all about him, he said. The 41-year-old opened his annual pre-draft media conference with a monologue stretching more than six minutes, a span in which he mapped the manpower required to scout college players.

This point for Telesco is important.

He wants to give credit where it's due.

"You get to this day where the GM gets up here and acts like he did all the work," Telesco said. "In reality, it's a huge group of people. ... There are a lot of opinions involved, and that's just the way we like it. "

As Telesco recounted, draft preparation is a 13-month process with about 13,000 college seniors in the Chargers' original database.

Of them, around 1,800 are considered prospects.

The organization assigns six area scouts — Mike Biehl, Tom McConnaughey, Paul Skansi, Jim Jauch, Regis Eller and Donovan Beidelschies — different parts of the country. Roughly 35 to 45 schools are included in each region.

Sit in flights, hotel rooms and rental cars. Watch practice and review game film. Speak to sources. Learn about a player. Learn about the person.

"They do that every day and go home every other weekend," Telesco said. "It's a grind for these guys, but they do a tremendous job. ... Then we have two national scouts, cross checkers, who oversee that. (Senior Executive) Randy Mueller, for instance, is a national scout. He'll get a second look on a lot of these players that the area scouts saw. And then Kevin Kelly is our director of college scouting. He'll get a second look on a lot of these players, see all the top guys. ...

"So we start with about 1,800 prospects. By the end of the day, we probably have over 3,000 reports on these guys because you're getting multiple looks on a lot of players. There's a lot that goes into it with these guys. They put a ton of work in."

John Spanos, executive vice president of football operations, and JoJo Wooden, director of player personnel, help oversee the process. Chris Hobbs, a college scout, assists scouting in various capacities, too.

That's the college season.

In December, before bowl games and with information from the fall still fresh, meetings with scouts begin. In January, various college all-star games are played. The coaching staff becomes involved in the draft process, watching practices at the Senior Bowl, the top all-star showcase.

In February, weeks of meetings precede the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis.

In March and April, the Chargers have a presence at pro days across the country. They travel to schools and work out players. In San Diego, they host 30 prospects on official pre-draft visits, not including local prospects.